1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system and a technology related to the image forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an image forming apparatus has been present, which is provided with a “sleep mode (power saving mode)” of restrictively supplying power only to a part of an apparatus in order to achieve a reduction of power consumption.
Moreover, following the development of the network technology, a technology has been present, which is for transferring a variety of data between the image forming apparatus and another apparatus (also referred to as a linking apparatus) linked with the image forming apparatus as described above. For example, in printer driver software executed in a computer connected to the image forming apparatus through a network, such a technology has been present, in which data regarding a toner residual amount in the image forming apparatus is acquired from the image forming apparatus, and the toner residual amount is displayed.
Incidentally, even in the case of having entered a sleep state once, the image forming apparatus provided with the sleep mode immediately returns from the sleep state to a normal state upon receiving an access from the external computer. Therefore, in particular, when a frequency of the access from the external computer is large, the image forming apparatus frequently returns from the sleep state, and an effect of the reduction of the power consumption cannot be obtained sufficiently.
In the view of the above, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2000-165419 proposes a technology for further reducing the power consumption by avoiding frequent return operations from the sleep state.
In the technology of Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2000-165419, a server computer (hereinafter, also simply referred to as a server) is provided separately from such an apparatus (also referred to as a client terminal) having a sleep function. Moreover, a “response message” equivalent to a message destined to the client terminal is transmitted from the client terminal to the server in advance and is stored in the server. Then, while the client terminal is sleeping, a message destined to the client terminal from another external apparatus is received by the server in a proxy manner, and the server transmits, to the external apparatus, a “response message” corresponding to the message received from the external apparatus. Specifically, for the message transmitted from the external apparatus, on behalf of the client terminal, the server returns the “response message”, which is registered in advance, to the external apparatus (that is, makes a proxy response). At this time, the sleep state of the client terminal is maintained. Therefore, the client terminal is avoided returning from the sleep state frequently.
However, in a proxy response technology by the server, such problems are present that concentration of loads to the server occurs since a variety of processing is performed in the server intensively.